THE BUILDING of the TUC's new headquarters Congress House in Holborn, which opened in 1958, was also seen as an opportunity to promote interest in the arts and architecture.

A design competition for the new building was launched in 1946  — the first of its kind in the post war period — and over 180 projects were submitted, from which David Du Roi Aberdeen’s modernist proposal was selected.

The TUC’s aspiration to promote the arts was amply vindicated when, in 1988, the building was Grade-II listed by Historic England. It’s considered to be one of the most important buildings housing an institution in London and a 1950s’ architectural landmark.

The Congress House portico is unconventional as it’s placed to one side of the building on the street corner, rather than centrally in the main facade. This widens the visibility of its foyer from the outside and it also opens it, on the inside, onto the street.

But the focal point of the front of the building is the bronze sculpture The Spirit of Trade Unionism by Bernard Meadows. Placed on an 17ft-tall plinth made up of a platform supported by a single rectangular column, it is well nigh invisible at close proximity but, paradoxically, it is in perfect harmony with the building when viewed from a distance.

Meadows, a native of Norwich, had joined the Communist Party in the 1930s and was a conscientious objector until Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, impelling him to join the RAF.

He came to international notice at the 1952 Venice Biennale with his work, angular and aggressive and reflecting post-WWII conflicts.

Although possibly the most naturally gifted of his generation of sculptors, Meadows’s profound friendship with Henry Moore and the resulting work commitment as his assistant meant that it took precedence over his own work.

He was also a dedicated academic and taught at the Royal College of Art, where he was an influential and inspirational professor of sculpture until 1980.

The Spirit of Trade Unionism marked a radical formal adjustment from the bulk of Meadows’s work, with its grammar of representational abstraction. It was, as he once confided, “all about the human condition. The crabs, birds, armed, pointing figures are all about fear ... perhaps not fear, it’s vulnerability.”

Meadows put that vulnerability at the centre of the “Spirit” and it is an eloquent allegory of the ideals of trade unionism — two barely clothed human figures have their arms firmly intertwined in a lock of assistance and rescue. One barely stands, the other is on the ground and their eyes are fixed on one another.

The scene has the air of a gladiatorial contest between labour and Capital, in which workers who fall are swiftly helped up by their union comrades. There is spirited energy in the arrangement of the figures that emanates single-minded determination and the power of class solidarity championed by trade unionism.

As sculpture it certainly conforms with Marxist artist and critic John Berger’s litmus test of “does this work help or encourage [wo]men to know and claim their social right?”

Yet an intriguing thought persists about the impact of the sculpture’s elevation. What if it were taken off that “hydraulic lift” of a plinth, doubled in size and placed at street level, right in our faces?

From July 9-11, the TUC is running the Organise 2020 event, showcasing union organising stories from around Britain and the world, along with debates on major trends in organising and free  online training sessions in key organising topics and new digital technologies. Details: tuc.org.uk/welcome-organise-2020